Newcomers get rough treatment at WDMH: report
Posted Mar 5, 2010 By John Nelson
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Tweet ThisEMC News Like their colleagues in big city hospitals, staff at Winchester District Memorial Hospital (WDMH) are feeling overworked and understaffed, but a recent survey of employee wellness and satisfaction found one additional stressor for hospital workers: the treatment of staff from outside the area.
"It's not particularly welcoming to newcomers," said Dr. Linda Duxbury, the Carleton University professor who led the $8,000 study. "That's going to be a real problem. How are you going to staff? That's not an issue in Ottawa."
She added that both newcomers and established families were aware of the divide noting that the subject "came up over and over and over" in response to a confidential staff survey and one-on-one interviews in 2009.
Highlights of Dr. Duxbury's report were released by WDMH officials on Feb. 17, although the report itself was not made public.
Hospital CEO Trudy Reid said she had no immediate solution to the problem but said WDMH was moving to the next phase. Ph.D. candidate Laura Gover will be at the hospital for the next year or two identifying specific problems and implementing solutions as they are found.
"Clearly, there has been a lot of change here and in the (health care) sector in general," said Ms. Gover. "This is a very hot environment."
The need to be more welcoming to newcomers is great.
"WDMH has moved from a very small hospital with a long history to a regional leader focused on progressive, leading-edge solutions to ensure the very best care for our local communities," she said in a new release issued during a meeting with the media. "We need to find ways to embrace these changes while never losing our rich history."
Dr. Duxbury pointed out that many of WDMH's 178 employees have spent their entire careers at the hospital, often in the same job and "they want to do it the old way" despite changes in the health care system.
Meanwhile, the survey found 68% of WDMH staffers felt overloaded by their work.
"It's feeling overwhelmed, it's feeling rushed," said Dr. Duxbury. "That's not unique to here."
Provincial funding cuts and downsizing are partly to blame, she said.
"We got rid of people but we didn't get rid of work," said Dr. Duxbury. "We don't treat health care providers particularly well."
Staff reported feeling unappreciated and out of touch with management, but the report found the managers themselves were perhaps worse off.
"Eight per cent are highly overloaded and highly stressed," said Dr. Duxbury. "That is a crisis situation. Who's going to take that job?"
She explained that much of the management support staff has been removed recently while at the same time an entire level of management has been removed.
"It's made everybody unhappy," said Dr. Duxbury.
In many case, employees with strong technical skills are promoted to management positions with the result being that the most able employees are lost and a good manager not necessarily gained. A lack of teamwork is contributing to feelings of stress as well.
Dr. Duxbury said most hospital employees are highly dedicated to their jobs and willing to put in long, hard hours but had difficulty in interacting with other health care workers.
"People in health care don't work well together in teams," she said. "You can do the work by yourself but the different jobs are connected. That's not just here, that's system-wide."
The lack of teamwork is a big problem with health care worker dependent on each other to provide the best treatment to patients and with the trend towards overall wellness programs. Dr. Duxbury said much of the trouble centres around key individualsmainly doctorsto whom other members of the team tend to defer.
"I was a little surprised by the findings on the teamwork side," said Ms. Reid, who added there would be no "knee-jerk" solutions to the findings.
"This is only the start," said Dr. Duxbury. "We know that everyone cares about this hospital and, with this study, the challenges have been identified. Everyone now needs to get on board to focus on teamwork, collaboration and respect."
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